POEM FOR SNOWDEN #4: HAMILTON

Truth Teller

Only a crazy person.

An American,

crazy in this particular way,

has had to leave America.

Britain cannot countenance crazy people either,

or France, or Russia, or Israel, or. . .

Power cannot look at crazy,

crazy is a searchlight that beams into power's corners.

You would have to be crazy,

as Martin Luther was

when he nailed his objections to the door,

as Rosa Parks was

when she refused to give up her seat on the bus.

Bradley Manning crazy.

Edward Snowden crazy.

All the holy fools.

Sheila Hamilton graduated with a degree in French and German from the University of East Anglia in 1989. She is a widely published poet. Her first pamphlet, The Monster in the Rose Garden was published by Flarestack in 2001; her second One Match, an exploration of the self-immolation of Jan Palach, was published by Original Plus in 2010. A full-length collection, Corridors of Babel, came out in 2007 from Poetry Salzburg. Sheila lives on the Wirral in the North West or England. She is a reviewer and a mentor as well as a poet.

Comments

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